1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for testing a link control card (LCC), and particularly to a system and a method for testing a hard reset state of the LCC.
2. General Background
With the development of information technology, a magnetic disc array is more and more popularly used for various application systems in enterprises. The magnetic disc array provides an additive enclosure storage device for extending storage capacity of a single host or server, and is connected to the host by a small computer system interface (SCSI) or other interfaces. The magnetic disc array is used in storage area networks (SANs) by means of a fiber channel interface, for sharing storage capacities among a plurality of hosts. The magnetic disc array with fiber channel adopts the fiber channel technology and has a fiber channel interface connected to the magnetic disc array's exterior such as a host, with fiber channel technology in it's interior.
Presently, a conventional fiber channel storage device includes two LCCs, a middle plane (MP), a magnetic disc array having fifteen hard disk drives(HDDs), and two power supplies. In a testing procedure of the fiber channel storage device, a host transmits commands to the magnetic disc array, and adopts an enclosure switch to reset the LCCs, for testing a hard reset state of the LCCs. However, the magnetic disc is expensive, and this can increase the cost of testing. Furthermore, the magnetic disc consumes significant amounts of power, and is prone to reliability problems especially if it sustains external shock or vibration. If the magnetic disc operates unreliably, this may compromise the accuracy of the test.
What is needed is a lower cost system and method for readily testing hard reset state of an LCC of a storage device.